Computationally efficient modeling of proprioceptive signals in the upper limb for prostheses: a simulation study.

Accurate models of proprioceptive neural patterns could one day play an important role in the creation of an intuitive proprioceptive neural prosthesis for amputees. This paper looks at combining efficient implementations of biomechanical and proprioceptor models in order to generate signals that mimic human muscular proprioceptive patterns for future experimental work in prosthesis feedback. A neuro-musculoskeletal model of the upper limb with 7 degrees of freedom and 17 muscles is presented and generates real time estimates of muscle spindle and Golgi Tendon Organ neural firing patterns. Unlike previous neuro-musculoskeletal models, muscle activation and excitation levels are unknowns in this application and an inverse dynamics tool (static optimisation) is integrated to estimate these variables. A proprioceptive prosthesis will need to be portable and this is incompatible with the computationally demanding nature of standard biomechanical and proprioceptor modelling. This paper uses and proposes a number of approximations and optimisations to make real time operation on portable hardware feasible. Finally technical obstacles to mimicking natural feedback for an intuitive proprioceptive prosthesis, as well as issues and limitations with existing models, are identified and discussed

Inertial Load Compensation by a Model Spinal Circuit During Single Joint Movement

Office of Naval Research (N00014-92-J-1309); CONACYT (Mexico) (63462

Combining frequency and time domain approaches to systems with multiple spike train input and output

A frequency domain approach and a time domain approach have been combined in an investigation of the behaviour of the primary and secondary endings of an isolated muscle spindle in response to the activity of two static fusimotor axons when the parent muscle is held at a fixed length and when it is subjected to random length changes. The frequency domain analysis has an associated error process which provides a measure of how well the input processes can be used to predict the output processes and is also used to specify how the interactions between the recorded processes contribute to this error. Without assuming stationarity of the input, the time domain approach uses a sequence of probability models of increasing complexity in which the number of input processes to the model is progressively increased. This feature of the time domain approach was used to identify a preferred direction of interaction between the processes underlying the generation of the activity of the primary and secondary endings. In the presence of fusimotor activity and dynamic length changes imposed on the muscle, it was shown that the activity of the primary and secondary endings carried different information about the effects of the inputs imposed on the muscle spindle. The results presented in this work emphasise that the analysis of the behaviour of complex systems benefits from a combination of frequency and time domain methods

Cortical Networks for Control of Voluntary Arm Movements Under Variable Force Conditions

A neural model of voluntary movement and proprioception functionally interprets and simulates cell types in movement related areas of primate cortex. The model circuit maintains accurate proprioception while controlling voluntary reaches to spatial targets, exertion of force against obstacles, posture maintenance despite perturbations, compliance with an imposed movement, and static and inertial load compensations. Computer simulations show that model cell properties mimic cell properties in areas 4 and 5. These include delay period activation, response profiles during movement, kinematic and kinetic sensitivities, and latency of activity onset. Model area 4 phasic and tonic cells compute velocity and position commands which activate alpha and gamma motor neurons, thereby shifting the mechanical equilibrium point. Anterior area 5 cells compute limb position using corollary discharges from area 4 and muscle spindle feedback. Posterior area 5 cells use the perceived position and target position signals to compute a desired movement vector. The cortical loop is closed by a volition-gated projection of this movement vector to area 4 phasic cells. Phasic-tonic cells in area 4 incorporate force command components to compensate for static and inertial loads. Predictions are made for both motor and parietal cell types under novel experimental protocols.Office of Naval Research (N00014-92-J-1309, N00014-93-1-1364, N00014-95-l-0409, N00014-92-J-4015); National Science Foundation (IRI-90-24877, IRI-90-00530

Linear modeling of possible mechanisms for parkinson tremor generation

The power of Parkinson tremor is expressed in terms of possibly changed frequency response functions between relevant variables in the neuromuscular system. The derivation starts out from a linear loopless equivalent model of mechanisms for general tremor generation. Hypothetical changes in this model from the substrate of the disease are indicated, and possible ones are inferred from literature about experiments on patients. The result indicates that in these patients tremor appears to have been generated in loops, which did not include the brain area which in surgery usually is inactivated. For some patients in the literature, these loops could involve muscle length receptors, the static sensitivity of which may have been enlarged by pathological brain activity

Chromosome movement in lysed mitotic cells is inhibited by vanadate.

Mitotic PtK1 cells, lysed at anaphase into a carbowax 20 M Brij 58 solution, continue to move chromosomes toward the spindle poles and to move the spindle poles apart at 50% in vivo rates for 10 min. Chromosome movements can be blocked by adding metabolic inhibitors to the lysis medium and inhibition of movement can be reversed by adding ATP to the medium. Vanadate at micromolar levels reversibly inhibits dynein ATPase activity and movement of demembranated flagella and cilia. It does not affect glycerinated myofibril contraction or myosin ATPase activty at less than millimolar concentrations. Vanadate at 10--100 micron reversibly inhibits anaphase movement of chromosomes and spindle elongation. After lysis in vanadate, spindles lose their fusiform appearance and become more barrel shaped. In vitro microtubule polymerization is insensitive to vanadate

Small perturbation dynamics of the neuromuscular system in tracking tasks

Small perturbation dynamics of neuromuscular system in tracking task

A comparison of the distribution of actin and tubulin in the mammalian mitotic spindle as seen by indirect immunofluorescence

Rabbit antibodies against actin and tubulin were used in an indirect immunofluorescence study of the structure of the mitotic spindle of PtK1 cells after lysis under conditions that preserve anaphase chromosome movement. During early prophase there is no antiactin staining associated with the mitotic centers, but by late prophase, as the spindle is beginning to form, a small ball of actin antigenicity is found beside the nucleus; After nuclear envelope breakdown, the actiactin stains the region around each mitotic center, and becomes organized into fibers that run between the chromosomes and the poles. Colchicine blocks this organization, but does not disrupt the staining at the poles. At metaphase the antiactin reveals a halo of ill-defined radius around each spindle pole and fibers that run from the poles to the metaphase plate. Antitubulin shows astral rays, fibers running from chromosomes to poles, and some fibers that run across the metaphase plate. At anaphase, there is a shortening of the antiactin-stained fibers, leaving a zone which is essentially free of actin-staining fluorescence between the separating chromosomes. Antitubulin stains the region between chromosomes and poles, but also reveals substantial fibers running through the zone between separating chromosomes. Cells fixed during cytokinesis show actin in the region of the cleavage furrow, while antitubulin reveals the fibrous spindle remnant that runs between daughter cells. These results suggest that actin is a component of the mammalian mitotic spindle, that the distribution of actin differs from that of tubulin and that the distributions of these two fibrous proteins change in different ways during anaphase

A permeabilized cell model for studying cell division: a comparison of anaphase chromosome movement and cleavage furrow constriction in lysed PtK1 cells.

After lysis in a Brij 58-polyethylene glycol medium, PtK1 cells are permeable to small molecules, such as erythrosin B, and to proteins, such as rhodamine-labeled FAB, myosin subfragment-1, and tubulin. Holes are present in the plasma membrane, and the mitochondria are swollen and distorted, but other membrane-bounded organelles of the lysed cell model are not noticeably altered. After lysis, the mitotic apparatus is functional; chromosomes move poleward and the spindle elongates. Cells lysed while in cytokinesis will continue to divide for several minutes. Addition of crude tubulin extracts, MAP-free tubulin, or taxol to the lysis medium retards anaphase chromosome movements but does not affect cleavage. On the other hand, N-ethylmaleimide-modified myosin subfragment-1, phalloidin, and cytochalasin B inhibit cleavage but have no effect on anaphase chromosome movements under identical lysis conditions. These results suggest that actomyosin plays no functional role in anaphase chromosome movement in mammalian tissue culture cells and that microtubule depolymerization is a rate-limiting step for chromosome-to-pole movements